A response to the extended dump he took on the GOP today in his speech to the AFL-CIO, replete with that dopey driving metaphor which he seems to think is so clever. Accusations of hypocrisy, a defense of small business and the Bush tax cuts, even a plug for Paul Ryan: There’s enough here that I feel a bit like a waiter in a steakhouse. I have so much red meat to offer you…

Barack Obama was part of the problem while in Congress. Senator Obama pushed the fiscally irresponsible measures that Democrats, who held the majority, advanced while holding the government’s purse strings. And now, as President, he’s not just one of the pack anymore as a mere contributor to the problem – he now leads the problem. We are sick and tired of President Obama pointing his finger and screeching through his blame game about what he “inherited.” Up until 18 months ago he was fully engaged in that Congressional herd mentality of the Left as he just went with the flow, adding to the debt and deficit, instead of bucking his party’s leadership to stop the recklessness. (Did you ever hear him as an independent voice standing up and speaking out against his Democrat party’s overspending and over reach? Come to think of it, did you ever hear of his congressional record at all? For the life of me I can’t think of any time he used his bully pulpit as a sitting U.S. Senator to lead free market, equality-respecting pro-private sector efforts, nor to change up actions he now conveniently condemns. He could have refudiated them all.)…

Regardless of what the Democrats want you to believe, this is a tax increase on every American who pays taxes. Families will suffer because the Democrats’ tax hike will reinstate the marriage penalty, cut the child tax credit in half, abolish various personal exemptions, and impose limits on itemized deductions like home mortgage interest and charitable contributions. Investors and savers would suffer through increases in the top rates in long-term capital gains and qualified dividends. And the Alternative Minimum Tax would end up hitting 15 million taxpayers – up from 4 million in 2009.

We’ll all be feeling the pinch, but the ones who will be hit hardest by this massive tax hike will be America’s small business owners – the businesses that create up to 70% of all jobs in this country. According to a recent report by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, small business owners will pay over half the taxes raised when the Democrats increase the top two tax brackets. In an already anemic jobless recovery, the last thing government should do is to impose even higher tax burdens on job creators. Instead of hurting “the rich,” such measures would end up hurting the unemployed.

That … sure does sound like a campaign speech. Speaking of which, according to a new poll of tea partiers, she leads the GOP pack with 23 percent. No one else is even close; Romney follows with 9.2 percent and then Chris Christie(!) at 8.7 percent. A sign of things to come? Maybe — but check out PPP’s back-of-the-envelope sketch of how the 2012 primary would play out if current polls held. Huckabee wins in Iowa, Mitt takes New Hampshire, and then it’s do or die for Sarahcuda and Gingrich in South Carolina, where it’s currently too close to call. Exit question: Nikki Haley to the rescue?